Steel ORCA, a managed service provider, has helped numerous legacy customers move to new platforms. IBM’s Platform Computing and z Systems have helped ensure a swift, relatively painless transition.

“We make sure that it’s an easy transition: easy to maintain and easy to continue on the same platform,” Steel ORCA CTO Larry Hess told theCUBE during IBM Edge2015. “As an MSP, we give customers the option to transition at their need or grow with their will and their need.”

Demand for Linus and Oracle as a service

Hess sees a demand for Linux and Oracle as a service, with Linux “growing fast” in the marketplace.

“Lots of companies went to the X [Window System]. We thought the world would transition to that,” said Hess. “We see it as a choice. You can move to the X, or you can stay on the mainframe where you can have better control and serviceability.”

For an MSP, performance and uptime for a product such as z Systems are secondary to client experience.

“In the background, performance is absolutely expected, and that’s what it’s providing,” said Hess. “But we look at customer experience as the most important thing.”

Instantaneous ability and quick provisioning

IBM’s z13 brings analytics and transaction data together, which is a service that Steel ORCA’s clients look for these days.

“One of our anchor clients is dong analytics for banking, which is very intensive in short periods,” said Hess. “As storage moves from online to immediate access to ‘reserve storage,’ that client loves the instantaneous ability and quick provisioning.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Edge2015.